"So, read any good books lately?" Bugs Bunny would ask whenever he was trying
to talk his way out of trouble. You can bet that Elmer would have blasted Bugs Bunny to rabbit heaven if he had asked
"So, played any good video games lately?" That's because it's amicable and polite to talk about books, but not about
games. GameSpot's Matthew Rorie notes,
If I were forced to talk to a perfect stranger—someone that I wanted to like me—and had to choose a single type of media as the basis of discussion, you can bet that I wouldn't start up with something like "So, you like comic books? That Warren Ellis sure is talented!" or "Play Shadow of the Colossus yet? Boy, what a beautiful game!"
It's frustrating to us gamers, but perhaps we can take solace in the fact that "With the arrival of each new medium, existing media industries respond with fear and hostility" (source). To understand today's anti-games movement, we can examine past conflicts for hints of what might happen to games, with the war against comic books perhaps offering the best parallels for understanding the state of games today.
When will gaming gain more widespread respectability? What's it going to take?
[Via 4CR]
